Local Attorneys Give Refugees Helping Hand

Lisa Martens had just settled into her art deco office on the 81st floor of Sears Tower when a partner in her prestigious law firm handed her a sheet printed with the names of 30 strangers.

All were refugees seeking political asylum in the U.S., and none had money to hire a lawyer, much less a 26-year-old hot-shot with Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, whose offices look out on Lake Michigan.

Martens, a far north suburban native with a law degree from DePaul University, scanned the list until she got to Thomas Makabu, 27, a university student who had been tortured and imprisoned in Zaire for his political beliefs.

"He was only a year older than I was, and it was just unbelievable what he went through: beatings, electric shocks, locked in a dungeon for more than five months with one meal a day and no water," said Martens. "And all because he wanted democracy in his country."

Makabu's story inspired Martens to become part of the Chicago-based Midwest Immigrant Rights Center's army of attorneys, pro bono litigants whose mission is to save people's lives.

Founded 10 years ago by Sid Mohn, executive director of Travelers & Immigrants Aid, and Chicago attorney Craig Mousin, the Midwest Immigrant Rights Center, known as MIRC, has helped 2,500 refugees and immigrants with legal problems since its founding in 1985.

At the time, civil wars in Central America and elsewhere had brought large numbers of refugees to the U.S., including the Midwest. Despite a new federal law that made it easier for refugees to seek asylum without fearing deportation, only a few applicants won their asylum cases. Those who did win tended to come from East bloc nations; few cases were granted from countries whose government the U.S. supported, especially in Central America, said Roy Petty, the center's director.

MIRC's goal was to train volunteer attorneys in asylum law to represent clients from all countries, regardless of politics, at no cost. Volunteers come from some of Chicago's most prestigious law firms, including Jenner & Block and Sidley & Austin.

"Before 1985, we found that asylum hearings were extremely brief-an hour or less in duration-and applicants were rarely given a full chance to present their cases," Mohn said.

"On top of this, immigration judges often knew little about conditions in the war-torn homelands of the refugees. We felt these refugees deserved comprehensive, well-prepared cases in addition to fair, impartial treatment."

The effort got a boost two years ago, when longtime Travelers & Immigrants Aid board member Jeanne Sullivan and her husband, Joseph Sullivan, chairman of the Vigoro Corp., a Chicago-based chemical company, donated funds that now allow the center to finance more complicated, lengthy refugee asylum rights cases.

The center's 10th anniversary benefit-"To Save One Life is to Save the World"-is to be held Thursday, Oct. 19, at the Chicago Historical Society.

Today, MIRC and the Sullivan program have assembled a panel of more than 160 volunteer attorneys, 25 law students and 50 volunteer interpreters who have given legal assistance to people from more than 30 countries, including Guatemala, Bosnia, Haiti, El Salvador, Ghana, Romania, Bulgaria, Iran, Honduras and Peru.

The center's attorneys try approximately 200 cases a year and win about two-thirds of their asylum cases, according to Petty. Nationwide, only about 20 percent of such cases are successful.

Thomas Makabu, 28, is now a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

His life has been a series of daring rescues. First, a member of his political party disguised himself as a prison guard and bribed other guards to rescue Makabu from prison in the Zairean capital of Kinshasa.

It was not until he was dropped off at a safe house in a nearby village that he realized he was not being abducted to be killed. He was put on a cargo plane to France and then given a ticket to the U.S., arriving at O'Hare International Airport with a phony visa. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, after questioning him at the airport, allowed him to apply for asylum.

Martens, his attorney, elicited expert testimony from Robert Kirschner, a Chicago-based physician who specializes in forensic medicine. He determined that Makabu's scars and other injuries had resulted from torture.